Healer Q&A in PLL LXVIII

[Renathras]

But that is fundamentally NOT how healers play in this game. You would quite literally need to foundationally overhaul encounter design for every fight in the game to kill healer DPS contributions. It's like sitting down to play Mario Kart and then complaining that the game's too silly and that the items are unfair. Well, that's what happens when you choose to play Mario Kart instead of playing Gran Turismo. You're playing the wrong game, and it's selfish and entitled to barge into a game and demand it plays antithetical to its design because you don't like one aspect of it. If you want to play a healer that only heals, go play a game that supports that playstyle, which the only MMO I can think of that actually does this is Everquest.

Here's the problem with that:

Mario Kart didn't start out as Grand Turismo.

I've been playing FFXIV since 2013. I'm not "barging into" anything. If anything, I'm asking that the game return to its ARR/HW roots. They've designed themselves into a corner, but those design changes started in SB and have come since then.

If you were playing Grand Turismo and a major patch turned it into Mario Kart, I think you complaining about that would be totally fair.

Also note: WHEN did I say "I want to play a healer that only heals and DOES NOTHING ELSE?"

I believe it's called a "Straw Man Fallacy" when you make up your opponent's arguments and then beat up on those arguments they aren't making instead of addressing their actual arguments...

.

Though I do agree with Grimoire-M that, in that game's case, you have a lot of other support/non-damage options as well. But if I wanted to be playing Everquest, I'd play Everquest. If I wanted to play Everquest with a Final Fantasy skin, I'd be playing FFXI.

None of that has anything to do with this discussion, since I didn't make that argument. I'll thank you to NOT put words in my mouth, if you please.

[ty_taurus]

And even then you have so many better support classes to choose from in that MMO that don’t deal direct damage OR heal at all. Resource attrition, AI manipulation, and Crowd Control are the hallmarks of that era. And it was far slower and more methodical than current MMO combat. Mostly due to hardware, but the design choices that ultimately formed the genre evolved out of MUDs and D&D.

The support role was actually considered for ARR--something like XI's Bard that almost exclusively used buffs and debuffs, but the driving concern was that the role would be so unpopular that it would make queue times a nightmare, and that's a very realistic concern. There's a big issue with exclusive buff/debuff classes as well as exclusive healers in that there are an extremely small number of RPG players who are content with that style of gameplay. Jobs or games that have those roles are often criticized for those roles being slow, repetitive, and boring. That's why RPGs have largely abandoned those passive gameplay styles over the last 10 years especially.

Ironically, I remember a thread that came up where someone who was advocating for a heal-only style of gameplay used Soraka from League of Legends as an example of how a passive healer could be fun, but failed to recognize that a huge aspect of her gameplay is about also using offense to restore the HP she loses healing the party and silencing enemies with an offensive AoE. This was later brought up in that thread, and it goes to show how League took a character that originally was very passive and changed her to juggle offense to create engagement with her character both on the side of those playing her and those playing against her.

I definitely feel that Crowd Control is a missed opportunity in XIV that could offer more interesting decision-based gameplay for healers to help offset the lack of necessary healing, but at the end of the day, healer DPS in concept is actually a very good thing for this game. In fact, I was around for ARR, and I remember the healers being heralded for being so much more than the healbots of WoW back in 2013. But the pressure of old Cleric Stance's punishment-based DPS system, and the influx of players joining in HW that were expecting WoW-style healbots created a rift that SE felt obligated to sterilize. It's impossible to know for sure, but I can't help but wonder if that issue didn't arise, that we could've had far more well-designed and interesting healer design by now, and I really wish SE responded by standing firm in the game's original design philosophy with healing rather than backpedal on what it had established. I do agree that old Cleric Stance wasn't a healthy way to continue healer engagement, but the neutering of healer DPS was so far beyond overkill that that the role has become a husk of what it used to be. Perhaps that's not the case and we were doomed to reach this point anyway, but it's hard to not feel frustrated when a niche handful of people continue to demand the game change into a different game just so they can be healers who don't DPS.

[ty_taurus]

Here's the problem with that:

Mario Kart didn't start out as Grand Turismo.

I've been playing FFXIV since 2013. I'm not "barging into" anything. If anything, I'm asking that the game return to its ARR/HW roots. They've designed themselves into a corner, but those design changes started in SB and have come since then.

If you were playing Grand Turismo and a major patch turned it into Mario Kart, I think you complaining about that would be totally fair.

Also note: WHEN did I say "I want to play a healer that only heals and DOES NOTHING ELSE?"

I believe it's called a "Straw Man Fallacy" when you make up your opponent's arguments and then beat up on those arguments they aren't making instead of addressing their actual arguments...

.

Though I do agree with Grimoire-M that, in that game's case, you have a lot of other support/non-damage options as well. But if I wanted to be playing Everquest, I'd play Everquest. If I wanted to play Everquest with a Final Fantasy skin, I'd be playing FFXI.

None of that has anything to do with this discussion, since I didn't make that argument. I'll thank you to NOT put words in my mouth, if you please.

I was there during 2013 and the healing role was objectively not designed to be played only healing and never DPSing. A lot of players fell back on that because it's what they expected, but it wasn't how the game was designed, and as players realized how important healer DPS was, the that's when a subset of players who had experience with old WoW or Everquest started complaining that this wasn't what they signed up for. But it was. You can see it literally day one that the game's lore was telling you that just healing is not enough. That was quite literally the backbone of the CNJ class quests' story. It was trying to teach you that you need to juggle offense and defense.

If what you want is for healers to be designed more like how they were in ARR, than that would mean trimming the fat of healing bloat and reintroducing more offense and crowd control back into the role.

Now, yes, we do DPS a lot more, but that's not because healers are designed to DPS. It's because SE keeps trying to make the role easier by adding more healing buttons despite the fact that that's no why novice healers continue to fail healing checks in dungeons, or address the pressure to know mechanics as a healer (outside of making damage so low that the rest of the party can still clear a fight even well after the healer has been KOed).

[Semirhage]

This is probably accurate. And even if we could outline the problems, could we agree on them?

For example, we all can see that healer KITS vs encounter DESIGN don't mesh. But what's the issue? We'd have to identify that to lead to the solution.

To me, the issue is that encounters have VERY STRICTLY SCRIPTED spikes of big damage, and healers (excepting maybe WHM) have VERY POWERFUL oGCD heals. This leads to a situation where healers are DPSing most of the time, and when damage goes out, they faceroll across high potency oGCDs, heal all the damage (or have ticking HoTs to heal before the next damage spike), then go back to DPSing to maximize their parses. This is how the high end gameplay works, and more modern dungeons (old dungeons deviate from this quite a bit, especially before SB, and lower levels, a lot of Jobs don't have those powerful heals yet)

But what's the solution here?

The high end raiding community thinks the solution is "give healers a dps rotation on par with tanks and damage on par with Ranged". Well, that's _A_ solution.

Another solution would be to nerf oGCDs. Why are your "cheap" heals (oGCDs) more powerful than your "expensive" heals (GCDs)? Shouldn't oGCDs be used for patching up the party and smoothing damage spikes and GCDs be what you use to actually deal with high damage? If you look at it from a risk/reward perspective, "expensive" (in MP and time) heals should be more powerful, not less or approximately equal. And we have so many (again, excepting WHM) that healers can generally cover an entire Extreme or Savage fight with oGCDs if they have a proper "healing plan". Why is this even a thing? Healing without using a single MP on healing or a single GCD on healing? Does that seem like healthy game design? That just makes your healers all DPSers that weave an occasional healing oGCD between their damage rotation - which leads to the demands of giving them a more engaging DPS rotation since they're...basically DPSers at that point.

So even if we CAN identify a general problem, do we even agree on the solution?

So how can we ask the Devs to do so when even we cannot?

Say we nerf oGCDs. Say we increase the frequency of outgoing damage. What are you left with?

Regen, Cure Cure Cure Cure Cure Cure. Oh the whole party took damage. Medica 2, Medica Medica Medica Medica Medica. Say, if you put Regen on hotkey 2, and Cure on hotkey 1, you can still have 211111111111111 gameplay!

Even if you were to go back and fundamentally change how encounter design works, the GCD healing kits aren't interesting either. I like playing healers because I like supporting the party and multitasking. Something healing/support jobs often excel at, in many games across many subgenres. I have always included damage dealing as an integral part of that party support, because damage dealing is a crucial part of the whole goal of every encounter: to make your enemies die. Spending the vast majority of your time spamming healing spells is something I have seen almost never in video games. Because the thing is, if you fail at healing, your party dies. You fail. You can hobble along for a long time with suboptimal damage output, but as a game designer you *need* a larger buffer for healing because the penalty for outright failure is that much higher. And you don't want to scare off all but the most hardcore of top-tier skilled players.

Square could increase healing requirements. They could nerf the strength of oGCDs. They could "force" players to spam GCD heals like healers are "supposed" to do. It would be boring, because the GCD healing kits are boring. It would also drop participation, because the minimum healing you have to do would go up.

I'm not against raising the skill floor so it's too scary for people who don't care about healing to get into it. Yoshida and I clearly disagree there. You and Yoshida clearly disagree there. It's fine to sacrifice some accessibility to make things actually engaging. Where we disagree is that I think "pure healing" is fecking boring. I usually play healers in games, but the few ones that make me drop the role are the ones that turn me into a precious helpless princess whose only option in battle is casting Booboo Kiss 4, and running away if the rest of the party isn't there to carry me around. The best designed healers have a wide spread of tools. Yes, they have more focus on healing spells than any other role, but I'm having fun when I heal the tank, then sleep a bear, then poison a goblin, then put the archer in a bubble to keep him alive a few more rounds, then hit an imp with my staff, then throw a holy blast at a demon, then put a regen on the paladin, then banish a skeleton, then deflect some lightning, then roast the enemy wizard in a pillar of fire.

This is an MMO, not a turn-based game. I realize that the above scenario is far too complex for an MMO kit to offer. But there's a grand canyon of options between that an "NO! I don't play to deal any damage! I play healer to HEAL! It's in the name so that's all it should do! Cure Cure Cure Cure Cure Cure Cure Cure is the peak of gameplay! I don't mind pressing 1111111111111, it's not boring at all!"

Not a chance. I'm never playing a healer designed liked that. Because it's boring. I'm paying attention to one or two health bars and making them go up sometimes when they go down. "Healers should spend most of their time healing" is a mentality that makes absolutely no sense to me, because I've never played a game where that was remotely true. MAYBE 50% of their time if the game's outgoing damage is high.

...and you talk about Yoshi P being dismissive to people...

Pot, meet kettle. <_<

No, I want to play a game. But I don't want to play a game as a damage dealer. You know this, so cut the snark a bit, eh? I'm treating this discussion and people in it in good faith, perhaps you should as well.

I've had this discussion what feels like a million times. Healers are multitasker support classes. I don't play a healer to spam Cure spells like a Trust robot.

[Silver-Strider]

I don't play a healer to spam Cure spells like a Trust robot.

Alphinaud and Uriange both have more DPS spells than we do as players and it's bs that SE trusts the NPC to do damage but for players it's considered too much. Seeing Aero 3 in Tower of Zot kills me a little inside every time.

[AnotherPerson]

The high end raiding community thinks the solution is "give healers a dps rotation on par with tanks and damage on par with Ranged". Well, that's _A_ solution.

Another solution would be to nerf oGCDs. Why are your "cheap" heals (oGCDs) more powerful than your "expensive" heals (GCDs)? Shouldn't oGCDs be used for patching up the party and smoothing damage spikes and GCDs be what you use to actually deal with high damage? If you look at it from a risk/reward perspective, "expensive" (in MP and time) heals should be more powerful, not less or approximately equal. And we have so many (again, excepting WHM) that healers can generally cover an entire Extreme or Savage fight with oGCDs if they have a proper "healing plan". Why is this even a thing? Healing without using a single MP on healing or a single GCD on healing?

So even if we CAN identify a general problem, do we even agree on the solution?

So how can we ask the Devs to do so when even we cannot?

No, that would never work as a solution - The problem is accessibility. Nerfing healing only makes things more difficult for subpar players as they depend on those oGCD healing in a pinch rather than the norm. That does nothing for them as the power of the oGCD heals would be too weak to do anything and makes things more difficult for them. The solution is never to raise the skill floor, or else healers would have never have been in this state to begin with.

As for why a healing plan is a thing - that's because fight design is scripted + there is an existence of an enrage timer. Mainly the enrage timer. It's what incentivizes good play by making all players adhere to a personal responsibility of doing mechanics and avoiding excess damage. Failing to do mechanics will make it more difficult to clear or outright wipe due to being debuffed with stat debuff (damage down, vulnerability down, death debuff). Having more healing or more damage will never resolve that fact because the game was never designed with that in mind. Thus DPS becomes always a forefront and utmost importance to help with the clear - which makes it always useful compared to healing (which is only useful when people lose HP). This is due to FFXIV's combat design being very similar to an action RPG. We don't have large and frequent amounts of unavoidable damage - instead we have fewer instances of unavoidable damage and frequent / large amounts of avoidable damage in the form of mechanics.

Finally, healers have to clear the MSQ. What you proposed is not a solution to solo instances. You're still going to be spamming 11111111111 until the instance is over and all enemies are defeated. The engagement is still not there. Even if they weren't DPSers, they will still need to clear content that was made for DPS & tanks - which means DPS who can use their full combo needs the enjoyment in doing so, leading to enemies with a high HP bar. Not to mention, DPS doesn't have as much survivability as a tank or healer, so instances have very low outgoing damage requirements for it to be accessible. And if a DPS needs time to clear it even with their high DPS, you can bet a healer is going to be bored because they won't have anything to do but press 11111111111.

[Maltothoris]

And we have so many (again, excepting WHM) that healers can generally cover an entire Extreme or Savage fight with oGCDs if they have a proper "healing plan". Why is this even a thing? Healing without using a single MP on healing or a single GCD on healing?

Like as said before here is why we have healing plans.

https://www.reddit.com/r/ffxiv/comme..._and_timeline/
https://www.reddit.com/r/ffxiv/comme..._and_timeline/
https://www.reddit.com/r/ffxiv/comme..._and_timeline/
https://www.reddit.com/r/ffxiv/comme..._and_timeline/

This is only the recent tier but fight design has always been like this ever since ARR. The encounters all follow a tight script with hardly any deviation from them. Not only that but the damage is scripted as well. Let's say a raidwide aoe does 30k. Doesn't matter if it's the first time that it is casted or the 10th time its casted, that damage always hovers around 30k before mitigations are in place. So not only can ogcds be planned around this but also party mitigation as well with things like reprisal, addle, feint, the ranged mit and the healer mits as well.

[Hawuhawuu]

Like as said before here is why we have healing plans.

https://www.reddit.com/r/ffxiv/comme..._and_timeline/
https://www.reddit.com/r/ffxiv/comme..._and_timeline/
https://www.reddit.com/r/ffxiv/comme..._and_timeline/
https://www.reddit.com/r/ffxiv/comme..._and_timeline/

This is only the recent tier but fight design has always been like this ever since ARR. The encounters all follow a tight script with hardly any deviation from them. Not only that but the damage is scripted as well. Let's say a raidwide aoe does 30k. Doesn't matter if it's the first time that it is casted or the 10th time its casted, that damage always hovers around 30k before mitigations are in place. So not only can ogcds be planned around this but also party mitigation as well with things like reprisal, addle, feint, the ranged mit and the healer mits as well.

P3S Ot cleave and p4s p2 are a nightmare to heal. While a lot of healers are willing to complain how easy it is, almost none would be willing to do it on min ilvl how the fight was intended.Those that week 1/2 cleared the tier at 580 have my respect, that should have a title. Raidwides hit so hard they can oneshot if mitigation isn't planned.

[Punslinger]

Many healers don't want to be damage dealers.

Yes, Sylphie from the CNJ quests provides a notable example of the archetype.

One would also have to wonder about the popularity of Atonement in WoW going from an optional talent to a fundamental part of Disc Priest gameplay, if "many healers don't want to be damage dealers."

I hate DoTs, upkeep buffs, DPS "press on CD" buffs/buttons, and complex rotations that I adhere to like a metronome.

Why are you playing an MMO, then? That's like saying, "I hate memorizing combos and playing DDR with the D-pad in order to perform special moves," while playing fighting games.

I find GNB enjoyable WHILE TANKING. I just get no personal satisfaction from "big damage". Zero. None. Not everyone in life is about big damage, and it boggles my mind how so MANY very OPINIONATED people seem not to get this.

You get no satisfaction from "big damage," yet you tank as GNB, the tank with the most DPS buttons in the role? (press X to doubt)

This is not about "OMG BIG DEEPS NUMBARZ GUD." This is about 2111111111 being boring as hell. This is about fight design giving healers almost nothing to do but spam 21111111111. This is about the MSQ giving healers nothing to do but spam 2111111111. This is about your "solution" being to replace 211111111 DPS spam with 211111111 heal spam. How is it that you Sylphie curebots seem not to get this?

We advocate for Green DPS because that is the only feasible way to save the role at this point! The time to take fights off of rigid scripts and switch to attrition-based healing was three expansions ago. That ship hasn't just sailed, it's struck an iceberg, and then been torpedoed just to be sure.

Square will not radically change how they design fights going forward, breaking with almost a decade of tradition. Square will not radically overhaul that same decade's worth of existing content to make it work with a new healing model. Square will not radically redesign every healer's healing kit from the ground up, or make MP management a key part of gameplay, such that HPM becomes relevant, in order to make GCD-centric healing interesting the way it is in other MMOs. Square will not do anything that raises the skill floor of the role, because Yoshida seems to believe that healers have IQs smaller than their shoe sizes.

So given those realities, the only way to make the healing role more engaging is to give it a DPS rotation that cannot be performed by a drinky-bird perched over your keyboard's 1 key. This makes healing more fun for skilled players, Sylphie can keep ignoring her job's DPS kit entirely, it fits with existing content design philosophy, it fits with existing job design philosophy, and it requires minimal effort from a dev team that plainly is not interested in spending anything more than minimal effort on the healing role.

[MiaShino]

Every class is deeps. The sooner this stoopid argument dies the better we shall all be for it.

Tanks are beefy dps.

Healers are dps that heal.

DPS are dps that do more deeps.

Doth not matter if you are playing DND or FF14, support does damage.

Lucio? Damage and boops.
Mercy? Shoot that pistol and blue beam.
Divinity? Water heal spec uses ice spells for damage and crowd control.
DnD Cleric? Flame strike? Holy weapon? Summon Celestial? What are those for I wonder?
Aion Cleric? Does nuclear damage and can fill in as tank when needed, is primary healer. Hated in PVP because of how fricken powerful it was.
Swtor Sage? Can burst heal by using dps nuke skill.

Stop trying to be Gandhi and start being Gandhi from Civilization.